An advance-agent like Charles sometimes found
difficulty in persuading the hotel people to accept orders on the
company's treasurer.

With characteristic enterprise Charles used the hundred-dollar bill as a
symbol of solvency. He flashed it on hotel-keepers and railway agents in
the careless way that inspired confidence, and, what was more to the
point, credit. He carried this hundred-dollar bill for nearly a month.
Often when asked to pay his board bill he would produce the note and ask
for change. Before the startled clerk could draw his breath he would
add:

"Perhaps it might be best if I gave you an order on the treasurer."

This always served to get him out of town without spending cash for
hotel bills.

Texas was still a rough country, and Charles's reckless display of the
hundred-dollar bill once gave him a narrow escape from possible death.
He had made the usual careless display of wealth at a small hotel in
Calvert. The bad man of the town witnessed the performance and
immediately began to shadow the young advance-agent. When Charles
retired to his room he found, to his dismay, that there was no lock on
the door. He had a distinct feeling that a robbery would be attempted,
so he quietly left the hotel and spent the night riding back and forth
on the train between Calvert and Dallas. This cost him nothing, for he
had a pass.

At Galveston occurred an unexpected meeting. Daniel Frohman, who was
ahead of Callender's Minstrels, had arrived in town by boat from New
Orleans (there being no railway connection then) to book his show for
the next week. On arriving at the Tremont Opera House he was surprised
to see Charles writing press notices in the box-office.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "I thought you were in Tennessee."

Charles walked to the window and said, with great pride, "We play here
all next week."

"Have you got the whole week?" asked Daniel.

"Yes," was the reply.

"But can't you give me Monday or Tuesday night?" asked Daniel.

"Impossible," replied Charles, haughtily.

"All right," said Daniel, in friendly rivalry, "then I will have to hire
Turner Hall and knock you out for two nights with our brass-band
parade."

Charles then came out into the lobby and confessed that his company was
up against it, and that it meant bread and butter and possibly the whole
future of the company if he could only play Galveston.

"We are coming here on our trunks," he said, "and we've got to get